


Dreamers of the Day

by auxanges



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, Humanstuck, M/M, Mutual Pining, bike courier john egbert gets flustered around texan boys: the fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-17 20:10:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9341285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auxanges/pseuds/auxanges
Summary: You’re face-to-chest with a boy your age in a sleeveless Longhorns t-shirt, dark wash jeans and douchey-looking sunglasses. His hair is spun-sugar white, his skin not much darker.“Yo,” he says, and you proceed to forget every word in the English language (plus the handful of high-school French you’ve retained) except for an eloquent “uh.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [marburusu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marburusu/gifts).



> early birthday gift for marbles aka pisces prime aka a filthy enabler. heres an overdone au concept that will probably hopefully be done when you actually HAVE your birthday lmfao god  
> i love you girl thanks for making me read it you piece of shit. throws confetti

This is your Monday. 

You wake up twenty minutes before your alarm, and lie in bed watching shitty videos until it rings anyway. You change it up pretty regularly: this week, it’s “Come and Get Your Love,” on account of _Guardians_ was a great movie. _Great_. You mumble the lyrics around your toothbrush. 

Monday, you don’t have class, not technically. The beauty of film studies is that the online course material is boundless. Fifty percent of your homework involves lounging in your pyjamas and watching movies, which is what you’d be doing anyway except now you get to pay thousands of dollars to do it. Adulthood is a cruel mistress. 

You manage three pages of analysis on the use of focal points before you can feel your brain cells start to fry. The universe sends you a reprieve: your work ringtone announcing a delivery. You check the address of the pick-up—a burger joint you’ve frequented several times—and pop some bread in the toaster. Time’s gotten a little away from you, and you’re not sure what meal it is, just that it sure as shit isn’t breakfast. 

While the toaster inevitably burns your food, you throw on jeans and a t-shirt that smells _mostly_ clean (you’re gonna be moving, anyway, no real point in pretending otherwise). You hop on one foot then the other for your shoes, run a comb through your hair exactly twice, and spread almond butter on your toast before grabbing your bag and shouldering open the door. 

You keep your bike chained to the railing by the steps. Jane keeps telling you it’ll get stolen someday; you keep telling Jane the thief would probably be worse off with the bike than without. Still, you love the stupid thing—its basket and bags behind the seat, the chipping blue paint, the black handlebar tape molded to your grip. You’ve had this piece of shit since first year. It’s like your baby. You named it Ghost Rider. Another great movie, on account of you don’t listen to the haters. 

The ride to the burger place is just long enough that the order’s already waiting for you when you pull up, no more than “hi”s and “thank you”s exchanged before you stick the bag of styrofoam containers in your basket. You double-check the delivery address on your phone. Google says it’s a tattoo parlour. You didn’t even know there _was_ a tattoo parlour in your area. Cranking the speaker of your phone, you drop it in the basket too and kick off to the tune of the Hawaii Five-O theme (featuring GPS directions).

It was Jane’s idea for you to get this job. You cousin has a tendency towards the overbearing, but you really are grateful. It gets you out of the house, it pays well, you’ve made friends with several of the shop owners. Check, check, checkity-check.

The wind’s at your back like a boost power-up. It feels good in your hair, against your arms. It’s fall: it won’t get much colder where you live until far later, which is good for business. Not that you’d stop for a little snow—never let it be said that John Egbert abandons hope the moment the thermostat needs a cranking. 

Your daydreaming and bike playlist make the ride go by quickly, and you reach the address halfway through “Don’t Stop Me Now.” Propping Ghost Rider on its kickstand, you squint up at the building. _Sweet Bro Tattoos and Piercings_ glares back at you in pink neon. Christ, it’s ugly. The five-star TripAdvisor rating taped to the window must not come from people with eyes. 

Grabbing the bag, you knock on the door. The parlour’s a small thing, more the first floor of a condo than its own place. You can hear the muffled bass of some indiscernible remix coming from inside. Seriously, what kind of place is this?

The door swings open and a body fills the entrance. Okay. Body might be a bit of an understatement. You’re face-to-chest with a boy your age in a sleeveless Longhorns t-shirt, dark wash jeans and douchey-looking sunglasses. His hair is spun-sugar white, his skin not much darker. 

“Yo,” he says, and you proceed to forget every word in the English language (plus the handful of high-school French you’ve retained) except for an eloquent “uh.”

His arms are covered in ink. The one holding open the door is a maze of gears and clock faces and winding keys etched over corded muscle and shaded in copper tones. The other one, with the forearm resting against the doorframe, is less tattooed—flowers creep up his skin from elbow to shoulder, into the shallow of his collarbone. 

You had your sexuality crisis in the tenth grade, but this guy is so hot you’re dangerously close to another one. 

It takes you a second to realize he’s waiting for an answer to…something you didn’t hear. “Uh?” you say, again, in case he thought you might be a functioning human being.

“I said, how much do I owe you?” His voice is _deep_ , sticky-sweet where his vowels stretch and rebel. 

Your brain is screaming at your tongue to remember how to form speech. “Oh,” you reply, then, springing for something longer than one syllable, “eighteen seventy-two.”

He pushes off the doorframe to rummage in his pocket for money. The action makes him turn a little: you see more flowers across his shoulder blade before disappearing under his shirt. He fishes out a handful of bills and flicks his wrist in a funny little flourish before handing them over. “Here—oh, I don’t need change,” he says as you fumble with your backpack. 

You frown a little, handing him the food. “But you gave me—”

“I don’t need change,” he repeats, and he sounds so—so _cool_ about it that you find yourself nodding, red-faced. 

“Okay. Okay, thank you! Thanks, um…”

“Dave.”

“Dave,” you echo, a dumbstruck hormone-fuelled parrot. “I’m John.”

One corner of his mouth quirks up a little. “Nice to meet you, John.” The _o_ in your name is a mile long. He raises the bag. “Thanks. Hope the rest of your deliveries go well.”

“Yeah, you too,” you reply. It takes you until after the door shuts again to realize what you just said. “Wait, fuck—”

You pedal very quickly home. 

There are six more deliveries that evening. Dave’s ridiculous tip sits in your pocket like rocks. On the couch, back in your pyjamas, you have to keep rewinding the movie because you miss so much dialogue. 

You’re a little screwed.

*

The next Monday, it catches you by surprise. The text comes in while you’re at your friend’s house playing old N64 games. The address makes your heart give Cirque du Soleil a run for their money. You hand Sollux your controller and apologize: he shrugs and attempts to control both at once (Luigi dies in record time) and you let yourself out, slamming the elevator button with gusto.

Today, it’s bento boxes from one of your favourite places. You strike up casual conversation with one of the servers, rocking on the balls of your feet. You’re being entirely too childish, too excited for a boy who’s said all of ten words to you. Wake up and smell the sashimi, Egbert. 

The bike ride sobers you up a little: by the time you pull up to the eyesore of an entrance, you only _sort of_ feel like you could sprint up a wall and riverdance on the roof. 

Dave answers the door again. “John,” he says, as if he’s surprised to see you. He probably is—you’re not the only delivery boy in the area. 

You hold up the bento boxes. “Butterfish and tempura?”

“Oh, fuckin’ sweet.” He rummages in his pockets, distracted. His eyebrows disappear beneath his shades. “Huh. I thought I had—HEY BRO?”

He turns his head and leans away to yell into the dimly lit hall behind him, but it still makes you jump. You tighten your grip on the boxes protectively. 

There’s a pause before a pitched-up version of Dave’s accent calls back, “Busy!”

Dave ignores him. “Do you have a ten?”

Another pause. “Still busy!”

“I’m borrowing a ten!” Dave suddenly pulls the door open wider. “You can come in for a sec.”

“Oh.” You’re back to monosyllabic speech: this is not a pattern you’re excited about. “Sure, thanks.” You cast a look at your bike before stepping inside. 

You were right about the condo thing. The entrance is simple enough, with sliding doors that you assume give way to the studio itself. They’re slightly ajar: from within you can hear a heavy, repetitive beat, and over it, a soft on-off buzzing. Gooseflesh runs up your arms. 

Dave doesn’t seem to notice. He’s leaning against the wall as he rifles through a wallet you’re assuming belongs to his brother. Behind him, a set of stairs lead up to a closed door. You wonder if they live here. You wonder what Dave is like at home. You wonder many, many things at once. 

Fuck your life. 

“So,” you say, as tactfully as possible, “you and your brother, you work at…you both do this?” 

“Yup.” He pops the _p o_ n the end of the word, engrossed in the wallet. 

Holy shit. You’re impressed, like for realsies, not just because he’s the dictionary definition of “Texas-wanna-sex-this” (he’s the slightest bit _bow-legged_ , for God’s sake, it’s not _fair_ ). “Thats—wow, you’ve gotta be amazing! You’re only, what, twenty—uh…”

“I’ll be twenty-three in two months,” he replies. He looks up at you, then, and you can’t see his eyes but that crook of a smile is there again. “And I’m pretty good.”

You smell something burning. It’s probably a candle, but it might also be your face. “Wow,” you repeat, because Dave shrinks your vocabulary to a second-grade level in five seconds flat. “I’d love to see some of your work sometime.”

The minute it escapes your mouth you want to die a little. You can count the total minutes you’ve spent interacting with this boy on one hand and maybe a thumb. Long enough to know that 1) he’s way out of your league, and 2) he probably has too much to do to—

“Tell you what.” Dave’s molasses voice breaks through your self-deprecating internal monologue. “Why don’t you drop by sometime this week? My portfolio needs some revamping anyways.” 

“Really?” Your heart’s back at it, an extensive and nauseating routine. Fuck your life twice.

“Sure.” His smile widens the slightest bit in the semi-darkness; you’re curious if it reaches his eyes. “I’ve got a shit ton of bookings later in the week, but tomorrow is pretty open, if you’re not—”

“Tomorrow’s great!” you blurt out, and goddammit, do you want to hide behind your delivery. “I mean—I have class in the morning, but after that, I could—”

“Drop by whenever,” Dave interrupts, “I’ll be here.” 

He finally produces a ten and hands it over with his own bill. Your fingers don’t touch, and you bite back your stupid disappointment. You pass over the boxes (still no contact) and he balances them on one arm, pulling another object from not-his-wallet. “The second number is mine,” he says, handing you the card between two fingers. You stare at it like he handed you a Michelangelo painting. “Like I said, I’ll be here.”

You nod like a dashboard bobblehead, pocketing the card. “Thank you.”

God, you wish you could see that smile more. 

Dave looks back at the wallet and raises an eyebrow. “Oh my fucking god—Dirk, did you get a _manicure?_ Hey Porrim, hey, are his hands baby-ass soft?”

The buzzing in the studio stop long enough for you to hear, “step away from the wallet or I’ll pour miso soup down your pants, you little shit.”

“I think that’s my cue to leave,” you say with as much of a straight face as you can muster. 

Dave gestures to the doorway with his elbow. It makes the mechanics inked on his arm dance. “See you tomorrow, John.”

“Tomorrow,” you confirm, and when the door shuts it’s all you can do not to backflip off the porch. (For the best—you can’t do backflips to save your life.)

No sooner do you sign off on the delivery does your phone vibrate with another. You pop in the address and set the phone in your basket. After a moment, you pull out Dave’s business card, too. You run your thumb over the lettering, DAVE STRIDER in what suspiciously resembles comic sans. 

The business card is almost as ugly as the sign. Pocket-sized hideousness. 

You’ve got it bad. 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You run a couple fingers over the pages, mesmerized. “Dave, this is so—you did all this?!”
> 
> “Last time I checked,” he replies, coolly, but you catch the tiniest onset of blush, high on his cheeks. He’s got freckles. “Unless there’s another Dave Strider running around doodling compasses and forging the most bitchin’ signature planetside.”
> 
> You smack him with the book; he pretends it’s a mortal wound. It’s like you’ve know each other forever, almost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for the feedback so far! it really makes my day every day  
> literally every character i throw in here is self indulgence and a good excuse to practice writing new kids so enjoy that

This is your Tuesday. 

First class of the morning is at eight, because you are very much a masochist, apparently. You shuffle into 1950s cinematography with the smallest cup of hot chocolate you can handle: caffeine makes you giddy, and you don’t need much help in that department today. Most of the lecture dissolves into white noise (it’s all online anyway, this class, a blessing for your grades and a curse for your work ethic), and when the hour is up you’re out of your desk in a flash, as if getting to your second and final class of the day faster will make it end sooner. 

Your cryptozoology elective is actually pretty cool, and you find yourself vibrating significantly less in your seat. Your classmate and friend is just as engrossed as you are: three heavy-looking physics texts are piled on the table next to her bright purple notebook. 

“You look chipper today,” Rose comments between sips of coffee. Her Thermos is enormous. 

“I’m always chipper.” Your chair squeaks a little as you spin back and forth. “Just…in a very subtle way.”

“Right.” Rose’s note-taking hand slows, and her eyebrows shoot up. “Wait. You met someone, didn’t you?” 

“I did not!” you protest, a little loudly; another girl turns in her seat and you wave a hand in apology. To Rose, you whisper, “I made a couple deliveries to his place, that’s all.” 

“Oh, my god, John, you do realize that sounds like the intro to every porno ever, don’t you?” 

You’re painfully aware. It may have kept up you up last night. 

Rose shakes her head. “Whatever. So your not-date—”

“It’s really not. I’m just gonna look at his portfolio—”

“Dirk or Dave?”

“What the _shit!_ ” you squeak. More people turn: Rose circles a downward finger in a “mind your business” motion. You lean closer, suspicious. “How’d you know?” 

She shrugs. “Please, John. Small town. Friends of friends. I’m not a rocket scientist.”

“Yes, you are, your major is _literally_ aerospace engineering—”

“My _point_ ,” Rose continues, “is that word will travel. Good or bad. Just be careful, okay?”

You roll your eyes. “You sound like Jane.”

She sticks her tongue out at you. “This is why I don’t get sentimental,” she mumbles into her Thermos. “At least tell me how it goes. My housemate keeps hogging the Netflix account, I need some entertainment in my life.”

You promise to enlighten her on the whole lot of internal combustion that’s probably in your future, and spend the remaining hour and a half doodling stars in the corner of your notes about what lives in the American Midwest. (Spoiler alert: weird shit. Weird shit lives in the American Midwest.)

*

You tell yourself you’ll take your time getting to the tattoo parlour—you don’t want to look a dishevelled mess when you spent more than thirty seconds on your morning routine, for once—but you still get there faster than expected. 

When the door opens, you have to do a double-take. The boy—man—standing in the entrance looks like someone took Dave, shrunk him two inches in the wash, and stuck his finger in a power outlet. He’s got the same white-blond hair, styled up and away from the same douchey glasses. His button-down has some ungodly paisley print, but the short sleeves reveal swimmer’s arms with the same flowery designs you saw on Dave. You can see where they creep along his neck and chest; it makes you wonder where else they go. 

You take a shot in the dark. “Dirk?”

His pale, pale eyebrows come together a little, like he’s focusing on you for the first time. “You must be John,” he says. His voice is higher, softer, a careful thing. “C’mon in. Dave’s with a client right now, but he’ll be done soon.”

“Oh.” You fiddle with the top button of your shirt, suddenly bashful. “I’m sorry. I should have called ahead—”

“Nah,” Dirk shrugs, closing the door behind you. “He’s looking forward to showing off a little for you, I think. Not that he’d admit it.”

He leads you through the sliding doors into the studio itself. It’s dimly lit, like the entrance, except for lamps set up at the two workstations. One of them is empty—Dirk’s, walls covered in elaborate organic sketches, intricate half-finished things that make you dizzy. There’s a calendar tacked to the wall, covered in messy handwriting and colourful sticky notes, a shelf with scattered My Little Pony figurines and novels in a meticulous sort of disarray. 

You turn your head to look at the other workstation. 

Whatever mess was on the desk has been pushed to the side except for a couple sheets of designs; there’s a chunky speaker blasting a song rehashed beyond recognition. The walls in this corner have Polaroids pinned to them, some of completed works, some of random people, some crappy bar bathroom selfies. A strange scrapbook of Dave’s life. His calendar’s a whiteboard poster with angry red acronyms filling nearly every corner. 

The workbench is currently being occupied by a slouching rubber band of a boy, all gangly limbs and wild hair pinned up haphazardly away from his shoulders. His shirt’s off, revealing a scrawny chest covered in—God, a little bit of everything, a surreal spattering of shapes and colours, faces and masks and bones, and it’s more than a little freaky. He’s watching another guy sitting on a chair across from him, and if the first boy was freaky this one’s pants-shitting _scary_. He’s got tattoos on his _face_ , over his throat, eerily detailed and monochrome. The best/worst shiver runs a cold finger down your spine. 

The second guy signs something to the first, who snorts out a laugh, says “Motherfucking _truth_ , brother mine,” and forms a response with his free hand. His left shoulder is indisposed, and you finally let your eyes wander to where they've been dying to look. 

Dave’s glasses are pushed up into his hair like a second thought, the faraway focus of his eyes hidden behind frosted lashes. His gloved fingertips are purple-black, splayed over the boy’s bare skin: it’s an oddly intimate thing to watch. You feel like an intruder. The rhythmic movement of his gun is almost hypnotic; you follow its path when he refills the needle in its tiny container, watching the designs on his arm come alive. 

It’s a long moment before he finally looks up. “Hey.”

You have a hard time remembering how to breathe. 

Dave’s eyes are a red more striking than all the shades and lighting accommodations in the world couldn’t have prepared you for. They lock onto you— _into_ you, bright and pale crimson and very, very fitting, somehow, a seamless piece of the Strider puzzle. There are dark rings under them, like he doesn’t sleep much, but there’s a _burning_ there, something just out of your reach. You so badly want to find out what it is. 

“—more minutes, and I’ll be all done. Sorry to make you wait.”

You blink, coming awake all over again. “’s’okay,” you manage, “I should have called, I’m sorry, I didn’t think—”

“Easy does it, will o’ the wisp,” the client drawls, “before you up and fly out the fucking window.”

Before you can even start to process what the heck that’s supposed to mean, Dave rescues you. “Grab a seat, have a look at whatever you’d like, I’ll join you in two shakes.”

_Two shakes_ , who even _says_ that, your life is the least fair in the _world_ —

“Sure, yeah,” you nod, your autopilot engaging to guide your incompetent ass to the couch in the corner of the room. You sink back against a pillow: Dave’s needle gun whirrs to life again. 

There’s a small table at your feet, littered with magazines. You gently set them aside and pull two thick black books into your lap: index cards are taped to each cover with DIRK and DAVE in bright orange and red block letters. Killing time seems like the thing to do, so you crack open Dirk’s album first. 

The pages are 6 x 11 gardens, flowers and vines and leaves, of finished sketches with “available” scrawled in beside some and scratched out beside others. You take your time flipping through, seeing if you can name any of the plants. You think one is like…a tulip, maybe. You have a regular delivery stop who lives for this kind of stuff. Some of the pages reveal more intricate geometric shapes, Fibonacci’s wet dream; art nouveau-style portraits; stained-glass work you’d hang up in the church of _fucking awesome_. You look back at the doors and wave the book at Dirk with a grin and a thumbs-up: he looks a little confused, but returns the gesture with the hand not holding a mug. 

It’s not as huge a book as you'd thought, but you spend enough time poring over the detail work that the snap of latex gloves coming off takes you by surprise. 

“All done, bro,” Dave is saying. “Great as usual.”

“Wicked shit,” the client agrees, rolling his shoulder. 

“I’ll cover it and you’re good to scamper your paint-happy ass to the funhouse from whence you came.” Dave leans back in his chair and wheels it over to pull new gloves and a bandage from a drawer, and you’re suddenly treated to a front-row-seat view of his hips. His jeans sit dangerously low, and you can see the waistband of his boxers when his shirt rides up. 

_I’m Dave Strider, and I give delivery boys thoughts that would make Jesus weep…in my Calvins._

When he’s done covering the boy’s tattoo, he pulls off the new gloves and free-throws them at the trash can. They bounce off the rim; you hide your snicker behind the album.

“Dirk will take care of the cash,” he says to the brother, gesturing along with his words. His hands are death-pale, bigger than yours—you have piano hands, that’s what your Nanna called them, long fingers and callouses on the pads of your thumbs, nails bitten down beyond redemption because the clicking annoys you. 

The face-tatted brother stands when Dirk pokes his head back in the doorway and ushers him over, his hands moving faster than Dave’s: the client disappears with them, winking at you. You wave back a little uncertainly. The doors slide shut behind them.

And then the two of you are alone, surrounded by shitty posters and all the questions you’ve been unconsciously gathering. 

You start with, “You know sign language?” on account of you are _not_ smooth. 

Dave mirrors his brother’s earlier shrug as he cleans his workbench with impressive speed. “Not really. The Makaras are just regulars.” He turns down the volume on the speaker, a strange and unreadable expression on his face in the lamplight. “Dirk’s better at it than me.” 

“I think it’s really cool!” you offer, shifting to one side of the couch. 

Dave looks at you, head cocked and brow furrowed, like he’s trying to figure you out, before you see that ghost of a smile again. “Cool,” he echoes. 

He sits beside you, the couch sinking under the new weight. Dave’s legs are crazy long: his knees almost bump the table where yours are crossed out of the way. He cards his fingers through his hair and sighs, and a very dumb part of you wants to reach out and take the weight of whatever it is off his shoulders for a little while. 

Instead, you pick up Dave’s book and set it on your lap. He scoots a little closer: you feel warmth radiate off him, a nice contrast to the crisp October air outside. His eyes are on you as you open the album. 

“Oh, wow.” 

Dave’s portfolio is full of machines, inner workings of everything you could ever imagine. Interlocking gears and pistons and wiring and circuitry, animal skulls (is that a _dinosaur_ , holy shit) and bird wings. Like he’s stripped off a layer of the world and laid it bare for you to see.

You run a couple fingers over the pages, mesmerized. “Dave, this is so—you did all this?!”

“Last time I checked,” he replies, coolly, but you catch the tiniest onset of blush, high on his cheeks. He’s got freckles. “Unless there’s another Dave Strider running around doodling compasses and forging the most bitchin’ signature planetside.”

You smack him with the book; he pretends it’s a mortal wound. It’s like you’ve know each other forever, almost. 

Almost. 

Dave holds up a sketchpad while you thumb through pages (bisected fish tails, old-timey radios). “Okay if I work? I know you came all this way—”

You shake your head so vigorously your glasses almost fly off your nose. “Of course not! Do your thing, man.” You waggle your eyebrows. “As long as I get to see when you’re done.” 

“You’re a devil, John.” He puffs out a funny little laugh. “Sure. If anything’s worth showing, I’ll consider letting you feast your eyes.”

Your eyes have been doing plenty of feasting, but like hell you’re about to tell _him_ that. 

You settle back a little more into the couch cushions. After a minute, Dave follows suit, shifting to tuck one leg under him as he leans against the armrest. The two of you sit in a comfortable sort of quiet, the scratching of Dave’s pencil and the rhythmic drone of the speaker pleasantly distracting from your train of thought— _trains_ , really, silence does nothing for your ongoing shit narrative in your own brain, but looking through the book is calming, and sitting inches away from a hot guy is not worth complaining about, either. 

Every so often, he pulls out his phone and switches the music up, instrumental tracks with the same heavy beats you’ve come to associate with the studio. His foot taps in midair, occasionally. Dave is full of details, minute movements that make you feel bad for staring over the tops of the pages a little, but they’re a story unto themselves—how the tip of his pencil rests against his bottom lip when he stares the paper down; the way his jaw works while he draws, like he’s testing words in his mouth but decides not to say them after all; the slow tide of his breathing when he finally relaxes proper. 

It comes as a bit of a surprise to you when he speaks without looking up. “So what do you do?”

“Me?” You fiddle with the plastic cover of a page between your thumb and forefinger. “I’m a bike courier, I run deliveries across—”

“Yeah, no shit,” Dave interrupts, twirling his pencil once, clicking it twice. Details, details. “I mean what do you _do_. Tell me about _you_ , John.”

Your name is full on his lips, curious. He raises his gaze to you: his glasses are still shoved over his bangs, and his eyes are earnest, and warm, so _warm_. 

You’re not a talker, not usually. Not with people you’ve seen all of three times. “I’m not very interesting.”

Dave raises an eyebrow. “Try me,” he says, and just like that you…you do. 

*

You’re not a talker, not usually, but you close the book and fold your hands over it so they don’t shake, and you _talk_. 

You tell Dave about your house in Washington, about your dad who calls once a week and the swing in your front yard. You tell him about Jane, how you technically share rent but she’s in France doing some fancy cooking program and let you house-sit for her. You tell him about your degree, about all your favourite movies, cutting yourself off before you can bore him with colour composition in Winding Refn films. 

(You don’t tell Dave about the days you miss six alarms and two meals, the days where you stare at your ceiling in the dark, the days where you pull yourself out of bed and turn off your phone and ride your bike until your legs and lungs burn because you’re not quite sure how to feel anything else.) 

Dave is still drawing, the volume of the speaker lowered and his eyes darting to you now and again between flips of the sketchpad. He doesn’t cut in much: he smirks a little when you mention your summers at gymnastics camp, laughs when you tell him how you stood on the bench and took a huge dramatic bow at your first piano recital when you were seven on a dare. When you tell him how your friend can recite the first hundred digits of pi from memory, Dave tells you how he rapped the periodic table in his middle school talent show. 

It is, without much doubt, the best Tuesday in your entire fucking life. 

You’re not entirely sure how long you sit on his couch—the curtains are drawn in a way that only lets a little bit of autumn light through behind you—and when your phone dings you feel strangely disappointed. Dave glances up again. “Delivery?”

“Yeah.” You confirm the assignment with the weariest tap you can muster. “I’m really—”

“Don’t be sorry.” Dave closes the sketchpad and stretches: his thighs lift off the couch a little, and you busy yourself with setting the books back on the table. “I needed that, you know?”

You think you might know. 

You grin and stand. “Glad to deliver, then.” 

“Did you just make a shitty pun in my own workplace? Yeah, it’s definitely time for you to leave.”

“Happy coincidence, that’s all!” 

Dave gives you a light kick as he gets up too, fixing his shades back over his eyes. It’s like a mask, almost, the way his face settles easily into something that gives away very little. You caught a glimpse of Dave beneath them, fleeting and curiosity-inducing, and it doesn’t escape you that this is the most interested you’ve been about anything in months. Longer? You dunno. 

Life sure likes to take you out for spins. 

At the door, you find yourself saying “Hold on,” and extending a hand for his phone. When he hands it over (red case, minimalist design that’s not nearly as much an eyesore as the sign outside) you punch in your name and number before you can give your brain time to process regret. “I don’t have an ugly business card, sorry.” 

Dave looks at his screen for a moment before pocketing it: he mouths your name, first-last-handle, committing it to memory. “It’s a masterpiece, you know. Took me twenty whole minutes to put together in MS Paint.”

“ _Dude_.”

He claps a hand on your shoulder: you feel it through your shirt like he’s holding a candle to your bare skin. “Thanks for stoppin’ by.”

You feel your face break into a goofy grin. Suppressing it is futile. “I’ll see you around?”

“Like I said, Egbert.” His mouth lifts at the corners, a tiny mirror of your own expression. “I’m always here.”

You hop on Ghost Rider and get halfway to your destination before your brain catches up enough to feel bad for talking his ear off. Dave’s got some kind of awesome factor—broken hot scale notwithstanding, even—that you seriously doubt you can reach. You try to reassure yourself, a classic argument in your own mind; a “he said, he said” of self-assurance. It kind of works, and you’re so wrapped up in your own thoughts and the lyrics to Boney M’s “King of the Road” that you pass your stop without realizing it and have to double back half a block. 

While you wait for the order to be ready (one of those fancy fruit bouquets, your town has everything), you check your phone. 

You have four texts from Dave rattling off the periodic table, complete with a YouTube link to a shitty bass loop. You laugh so hard the high-schooler working the cash looks startled. 

That night, your dreams are tinged red. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You can’t say that—I can’t say that to someone who makes me feel this—this calm.”  
> And the minute you say it, you realize how true it is: how Dave has this grip on the warm stillness of summer, stretching it into the studio, settling like a shroud over everything he touches. Including you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wednesdays are hard. theyre hard and no one understands  
> ok firstly, WOW you guys are so nice, thank you for your comments and kudos im blessed every day by you all, sorry i always update in the middle of the night LOL  
> theres setup in this chapter for a spinoff, again bc of who i am as a person, so thats a Thing

This is your Wednesday. 

You only have one class today, late enough to let you sleep in and contemplate what the fuck life is trying to tell you. Dave’s texts are a bright scarlet font that make you want to smile every time you read them, and you probably do, since you’re home alone and no one is there to see. You, John Egbert, are coming down with a serious case of The Feelings. 

You’re pretty sure your student insurance doesn’t cover that. 

During your class, the prof puts on _The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari_ , a film you’ve sat through no less than once a year, and you still feel the same about it: aggressively neutral. You shoot Dave a text, but you remember him mentioning a busy schedule. Your heart doesn’t register the difference, and you feel almost buzzed (which is better than dead asleep, how you felt the last time you watched _Caligari_ ). You also message Rose to meet you in the library after class—might as well hold up your end of the bargain. 

Your thoughts and worries truck along to the weird 1920s background music of the silent film. It’s a little new, this friendship, a little exciting and unlike any you can really remember. Everything behind Sweet Bro’s fuck-ugly door adds to your growing pile of questions for Dave, you want to know him, like _really_ _know him_. You want to ask about his tattoos and what they mean (they have to mean something, he strikes you as That Kind Of Guy), you want to ask about his life, what he likes, what he loves. 

In a small, slightly shameful part of you, you want to ask why when you saw him with his shades off, his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. 

You end up ducking out of class before the credits roll—it’s too quiet in there for you to deal with this alone. Rose is already at the library, holed up in a corner frowning at another open textbook. You drop a tea in front of her with your very best curtsy and sit down. She eyes the cup like a shark zeroing in on a drop of blood. Sometimes you feel concern for her caffeine intake, which is why you clarify, “lemon and ginger.”

She grabs it and downs half the cup before almost choking. 

“It’s, um, still hot,” you add. 

“I gathered, but thank you.” Rose pushes the textbook away: the page has no pictures and is full of enough mathy-looking gibberish to give you vertigo. “So.”

“So,” you agree.

She jabs an accusing finger in your face. “You’re the one who contacted me to meet. Am I completely in the wrong to assume it’s about your not-date?” 

You forget, sometimes, that Rose Lalonde mid-calculus is a force of nature. “Dave’s amazing, Rose. Like, stupid hot, stupid skilled, stupid…not, not stupid.” You tap your fingertips against the table in lieu of punctuation. 

She takes another (more cautious) sip from her cup, but doesn’t say anything, which is fine, because you have an alarming amount of shit to say, and it tumbles out of your mouth without so much as a push.

“—the only stupid thing here is how I talked his ear off for an hour. An hour! One time I went four days without talking, remember, but yesterday? Yesterday I think I stopped to breathe like _maybe_ half a dozen times the entire time we hung out, and he just— _let_ me?! What does that mean? Am I reading into this too much? I’m reading into this too much. You watch one conspiracy video and your life just spirals, you know?” 

Rose’s eyebrows are in danger of disappearing under her bangs, but she still refrains from adding anything. Fine by you.

“—and another thing! He’s fucking—he’s _pretty_ , Rose, like in that way that Thirteen-Year-Old-John would be all, ‘Wow, man, you’re pretty, but like, no homo or anything,’ except this is _very_ much homo, but how in the shit do you even bring that up? Uh, ding ding ding! You don’t! You can’t say that— _I_ can’t say that to someone who makes me feel this—this _calm_.” 

And the minute you say it, you realize how true it is: how Dave has this grip on the warm stillness of summer, stretching it into the studio, settling like a shroud over everything he touches. Including you. Your brain hurts trying to make sense of it, and you’re tempted to take a swig of Rose’s tea for yourself. 

She taps the tip of a gel pen thoughtfully against her textbook. “I’m assuming this is where I cut in with some deep wisdom you seem to think I have for you.”

“Well, don’t you?”

Rose shrugs. “I think,” she says slowly, “that you’re putting too much thought into what you _can’t_ tell him, and not enough thought into what you _can_.”

“I told him plenty!” you protest. “Telling him more is the opposite of what I was planning.”

“So you were planning something?”

“I…okay, no, smarty-skirts, I wasn’t. I was gonna just wing it until I ruin every chance at normal conversation with the spokesperson for ‘Texans do it bigger’—no, not like _that_ , fuck, I mean, I don’t—Rose!”

Your tone is creeping up the octave with your own desperation to shut yourself up; Rose’s mouth is turned up in a wine-lipstick smile. “I’m not trying to make light of your, uh, obvious plight here,” she replies, “but it doesn’t seem to me like you needed advice in the first place.”

“What? Yes, I do! I need all of the advice.”

“All of it?”

“ _All_ of the advice, Rose.”

She holds up an index. “One piece. As payment for the tea.”

“The tea was just an offering—”

“John,” Rose says, with all the authority of a general, “did it ever occur to you that Dave liked listening because it meant he had someone to listen _to?_ ”

“I…” You trail off, try again. “I. No.” 

The index is back, wagging a little in victory. Rose polishes off the tea. “Next time you see Dave, offer to return the favour. He might surprise you, or you might surprise yourself.”

“You know, a lot of the advice you give sounds like a fortune cookie. Or really shitty clickbait.”

“Heavy on the compliments today, aren’t we, Egbert.” Rose’s phone vibrates, and she glances around for a librarian before holding it to her ear. “Yes—your what?” To you she mouths _housemate_ , rummaging through her backpack and pulling out a purple notebook similar to the one you saw yesterday. The writing inside isn’t hers: it’s more jagged, angry lines where hers is a tight cursive print. 

“I haven’t _seen_ your notebook, Ampora,” she’s saying, drawing in the margins of her housemate’s classics notes with her pen. “—maybe, and I’m just making educated guesses here, if you prepared your things more than thirty seconds in advance—I am _not_ ‘gettin fresh with you,’ I am stating truths based on two unfortunate years of shared living space…”

You take this as your cue to leave. You give her shoulder a squeeze, and she pats your hand and waves away your whispered “thanks.” 

*

Your week goes by in a bit of a haze, a montage of delayed assignments and paused movies. Rose’s words mix and tangle with your own thoughts until they’re an indistinguishable mess between your ears. You lie in bed maybe a little too much. Your dad calls on Saturday, tells you how proud he is of you, asks about your classes and work. 

(“Thanks, Dad. Classes are fine. Work’s the same. I made a new friend. Yeah, me too. Him? He’s… he's an artist. Yeah, he is. Uh-huh. I am. Okay. Love you too, Dad.”)

Dave texts you sporadically, apologizes for how busy he’s been. You’re quick (but not _too_ quick, a tactician you ain’t but you sure as shit _try_ ) to reply that it’s okay, work is important, you’ve been pretty occupied yourself—which isn’t a _complete_ lie, you mean, if you don’t watch those videos of tiny food being made, who will? 

You work, you don’t work. The studio remains unvisited on your travels: you don’t want to intrude, bother, scare your newfound bro away. It makes your chest hurt, a little, the way you want to see him again. You make it a promise to yourself that you will, a silly little lullaby on the couch when you pass out with your homework binder on your chest. 

Somehow, your mess of a routine brings you back to Wednesday. Class is cancelled—midterm prep already, good thing time is a social construct or whatever—and you’ve picked up extra deliveries in a last-ditch effort to keep yourself occupied. Hands on the bars, eyes on the road, heart blocks and blocks away. 

Until your phone pings a delivery to the address you may or may not have memorized. 

You pedal hard to the pick-up, a flower shop not far from your campus. A bell attached to the door chimes your arrival, and a tanned face pokes out from behind an impressive array of foliage. “John! Boy, are you a sight for sore eyes!”

“Hey, Jake.” You close the door gently behind you and let yourself take a deep breath. “Back from your exchange?” 

“Got in from Nicaragua last week,” he confirms around a ribbon between his teeth: he’s trimming stems. “Had to take some time off work to get my bearings back, I’m afraid, but I’m pleased as punch with the trip.”

“That’s great!” You lean on the counter and pick up a sprig of something that smells nice, twirling it between your fingers. “I’m picking up for Sweet Bro.”

Jake raises a conspiratorial eyebrow. “Right down to business, eh?” He pushes off the ledge and checks the display behind him. “That’s the tattoo place, if I’m not mistaken.” 

“You know it?”

“Not really. One of the brothers orders arrangements for sketching, sometimes. Poor bugger’s allergic, Roxy says.”

It’s your turn to raise an eyebrow. “Really? And he still orders them?” 

“Can’t very well pick daisies on his own without sneezing up a storm, I expect.” Jake laughs, pulling down flowers and leaves with practiced ease. “Still, it’s a little curious. I’d love to see the end product.”

You lift your head a little higher. “I saw their portfolios last Tuesday. There’s some awesome shit in there, I bet you could name every plant in Dirk’s book!” 

Jake turns back to you, setting the arrangement on the counter and unwinding a fresh spool of ribbon. “I bet I could,” he replies, smiling down at the flowers as he ties them off. He curls the ribbon with the scissors and trims those stems, too: you see him reach for tissue paper, then change his mind halfway, like he’s decided it’s overkill. Instead, Jake grabs a label card and a green stick and scribbles something in the neatest handwriting you’ve ever seen from a guy before wedging the contraption between the buds. 

“Remembrance,” he says suddenly, and you startle out of the spell of watching him work. 

“I’m sorry?” 

He plucks the sprig from your fingers and tucks it beneath the ribbon, too. “‘There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance.’” Another grin. “My Shakespeare isn’t what it used to be.”

“You still talk like you ate a thesaurus for breakfast,” you assure him. 

“Come, now, that’s part of my natural charm!” 

You wave goodbye to Jake and carefully set the flowers in Ghost Rider’s basket. Your ride is unhurried, your playlist quieter than usual. Your hands smell like spices. 

When you get to the studio, there’s a note on the door in handwriting you recognize from the album and the whiteboard. 

_Stepped out for supply run. If you’re John, let yourself in, Dirk is probably too engrossed in work to hear the door. If you’re not John, fuck off, we’re closed, and also this note will self-destruct in ten seconds._

It’s kind of endearing. Damn him. 

You try the doorknob: it turns with a muted squeak. The lights are on inside, the doors to the studio open and dim as usual. “Hello?” you stage-whisper, feeling very much like a stranger. 

When you take a peek in the studio, Dirk’s asleep at his workstation, his head in his arms and his shades beside him. You remember with a little start the bags under Dave’s eyes: you hope they’re not running themselves into the ground, not so soon after you’ve gotten to know him. Them. Whatever. 

You stretch out a careful hand to set the flowers down beside him, but Dirk is suddenly awake, jerking his head up with what you suppose passes as surprise for him. “John.” 

“Hey,” you say, still in a whisper. “Uh, the note said—”

“Right, yeah, Dave mentioned you might drop by.” Dirk leans back in his chair and rubs his hands over his face before reaching blindly for his shades. “Let’s see it, then.”

You hold out the arrangement Jake gave you, and he takes it from you with a strange sort of care, untying the ribbon by hand. “So what did you order?” 

“Oh, I don’t actually know.”

That takes you by surprise. “Wait, what?”

“It’s a stupid little game, I guess. I ask the shop to make the arrangements for me, and I try to guess what’s on it. The answers are on the card right…” 

Dirk trails off. The lenses of his glasses are less dark than Dave’s, and you can see him squint at the card Jake put in the arrangement as he pulls it off the stick. He reads the contents once, twice, then laughs, a breathless little thing. 

“What is it?”

He shakes his head. “Nothin’. Thanks, John. I’ll tell Dave you were in. He’ll be sorry to have missed you.”

“Yeah, me too,” you reply, sincerity colouring your tone in the familiar darkness. “Hey, get some sleep, Dirk. Like in a bed.”

He almost smiles at you. 

You’re so busy trying to ignore the coldness in your gut that when you shut the front door behind you, you crash into someone. “Fuck—”

“John.”

Dave’s got a paper bag under one arm: the other is around you, catching you when your momentum makes you stumble backwards. His hand is hot between your shoulder blades. 

You blink. “Hello. Your note didn’t self-destruct.”

“Damn. I guess the trapdoor into a pool of man-eating sharks didn’t open, either, considering the fact that you’re not missing any limbs.” Dave straightens you and gives you a pat: you feel his handprint lingering on you like the world’s safest ghost. 

He looks tired, again. You want to wipe the fatigue from under his eyes. You want to see him again. Really see. “Everything okay?” you ask, opting for Rose’s advice over your own brain scolding you for being nosey. 

It seems to catch him off guard, your question. “Am I…? Yeah, I mean, I’ve had a long weekend, and Dirk wasn’t feeling so hot so I figured I’d restock our blacks and blues.” Dave pauses, like he wants to continue, but he just nods instead, like a finality to his own train of thought. 

You mirror the movement. “Hey, Dave?”

“Yo.”

“Do you like movies?”

“Movies?” It’s a little fun, being on the reverse side of the parrot effect, for once. 

“Yeah. They’re like moving pictures with dialogue and plot, most of the time. I was thinking, maybe if you’re not too busy sometime this week, we could watch one together.”

Dave holds your gaze from behind his shades: it still makes your skin prickle, like he’s tuning out the rest of the world. “I don’t have very many movies,” he answers, which _thrills_ you in a stupid way, because that’s a yes, isn’t it? It’s not a no, that’s for damn sure, you know a no when you hear one, or at least an outright no, but this—

“That’s okay! I can borrow my friend’s copy of ‘In Which a Getaway Driver for Hire Develops a Romantic Infatuation with his Female Neighbour, Whose Husband is Soon Released from Prison and Roped Into a Robbery with the Driver as an Innocent Escape Accomplice, Only to be Shot Dead at the Scene, Leaving the Driver with a Duffel of One Million Dollars Worth of Mob Money and a Target on his Scorpion-Emblazoned back, After Which he Must Escape the Gangsters who Want him Dead, Protect his Newly Widowed Love Interest and her Young Son, and Ultimately Prove Himself to be a Real Human Being and a Real Hero.’”

Dave lowers his shades a little to stare at you. 

“My friend pirates his movies from, like, Russia or something,” you supply. 

That makes him laugh. “Yeah. Yeah, that sounds really—that really sounds nice, John.”

You are fucking soaring. 

Dave hoists his bag a little higher. “I gotta get these put away. But movie. Yes. So much yes. Are you free Friday?”

“As of right now, immediately,” you reply with a grin. 

He shakes his head in what looks like disbelief. “Friday, then. See you around, John.”

“See you.” 

You text Karkat to bring his movie to Rose’s house tomorrow, please, it’s a cinematic emergency, and set off for home. You feel light enough that you could fly there, stolen summer sunlight on your skin like a memory. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have been sitting on that fuckin reference since the first word i typed in this fic im finally free


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kanaya shushes you, too, with a warning wave of her mug. You lean closer to Karkat. “I mean it. I’ll be okay, really. Just…I’m just thinking. About stuff.”
> 
> “You’re a shitty fucking liar, Egbert.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

This is your Thursday.

You’re not due at Rose’s place for your midterm marathon of Every Genre Under The Sun until later tonight. You study the best you can in the morning—you’re up before the last of the birds and can’t quite get back to sleep—and clock in a couple hours of work to pass the time. It’s hot for this time of year: you swap your jeans for shorts and bike to a frozen yogurt place a few blocks north of campus between deliveries. The boy behind the counter looks up when the door opens, and you blink as you recognize him. 

“You! Clown tattoo guy!”

He shoots you a lazy grin and reaches back to fix his hair. He is very, _very_ tall. “Baby blue. What in the motherfuck is up?” 

You run your fingers through your own hair reflexively, scanning the array of delicious dairy goodness in front of you. “Oh, you know. Technically on the job. Heeded the call of the froyo.”

The boy nods solemnly; his name tag reads GAMZEE in uneven handwriting, complete with a smiley face and a handful of stickers that fold around its edges. “She’s a temptress, she is. Resistance is futile.” He sweeps a dramatic hand over the flavours, and you catch Dave’s handiwork across his forearm like a rainbow drowned in fluorescent light. “Pick your poison, brother.”

“Um…” 

You settle for strawberry, and Gamzee plops a generous helping of frozen yogurt into the tiny cardboard container; a precarious pink mountain. As he rings you up, he asks, “Were you bookin’?”

“Was I what?”

“At the studio, little bro. Is a motherfucker gearing up for some ink on that virginal bod?”

Gamzee leans on his forearms over the counter as you fumble with your debit card, tripping your way through a response. “I’m not a—I mean, no, I wasn’t making an appointment. I’m—I’m friends with Dave, I was there to see him.”

He whistles. “Daaaave Strider,” he drawls, long and slow: nothing about this boy is rushed, not even his backwards reach with a plastic spoon to scoop a bite of mango froyo from the display for himself. “My miraculous main man. Up and pours his motherfucking heart and soul into that needle gun of his.”

You find yourself nodding along, like Gamzee’s an expert on all things Dave. “He’s incredible.” There’s not much else you can say—trying to box your friend into adjectives seems like a crime against Striders and syntacticians everywhere. “His heart and soul, huh?” 

Gamzee takes his spoon out of his mouth and pushes a jar of gummy worms towards you. You wiggle one distractedly across your snack. “Ever been sad, baby blue? So motherfucking sad it ain’t got nowhere to go but out, but you don’t got the words to do it proper-like?”

Your own spoon freezes halfway to your lips. “No,” you lie. 

“Strider boy’s got the wicked sads, little brother. Lets ‘em out every motherfucking colour, here”—Gamzee twists, and you stare at the fresh ink on his shoulder blade, some kind of creature you don’t know, vivid and real and half-tucked into his tank top—“and here, and everywhere. I hold his sads for him no charge, ain’t no extra weight on my back, you dig me?” 

You dig Gamzee. You don’t dig the ache in your chest. You take a huge swallow of froyo to move the hurt to your brain; Gamzee raises an amused eyebrow when you make a face. “He doesn’t deserve that,” you protest, once your skull thaws out again. “I’ve never met anyone like him.”

He pops a gummy worm into his mouth. “Might be he reckons that about you,” he points out. 

“Me? I’m not—”

“Brother, I’ve been frequenting Sweet Bro for _way motherfucking long_ , and I ain’t never seen his face light up the way it did when you up and blew in with the wind.”

Gamzee’s eyes are a little red, but he sounds sincere enough, and you’re half tempted to tip him for the impromptu insight he dished out for free. “Gamzee, I—”

You’re cut off by your ringtone for work, cranked up to an unfortunate level: you almost drop your froyo trying to silence the **_BUSTIN MAKES ME FEEL GOOD_** that blares from your pocket. 

“Holy goddamn,” says Gamzee.

“Sorry, sorry,” you mumble, retrieving your phone. Your heart drops to your stomach, then trampolines into your throat. 

It must show on your face, because Gamzee laughs and waves you away. “Get the hell out of my shop, motherfucker. Tell the miracle boy I said hey.”

You shove the rest of your snack into your mouth as fast as you can tolerate and hop on Ghost Rider to get to work. 

*

The Sun is unforgiving on your back the whole ride over to the studio. Your delivery is tucked into your basket—Mexican food—and you’re pretty sure if it weren’t already cooked at the restaurant, it would be by the time you pull up to Sweet Bro’s steps.

As you pop down the kickstand, you hear voices from inside: the door is open in an attempt to get a breeze going, leaving only a banged-up screen between you and what sounds a little too heated to be generic sibling rivalry. 

“—know I didn’t _need_ to, that’s not why I—”

“No? Then why, huh? I already told you I don’t need your help.”

“I don’t even think that really counts as trying to help. You’re over—”

“Oh, _fuck_ no, don’t even start, that’s the oldest line in your shitty overdue library copy of ‘crap to pull out your ass when your little bro calls you out on your shit, volume four.’ Racking up some serious fines, Dirk.”

“I’m not pulling anything out of anywhere. If you did things for _yourself_ once in a while—”

“I’m fuckin’ _trying!_ ”

There’s a scuffle, like one of them’s tried to throw a punch. You don't have a sibling—Jane took eight years of martial arts classes, and you were never keen on trying to tussle with her—but you assume this is how arguments are resolved. Still, you don’t like the idea of it getting out of hand; your fist hovers midair, unsure whether to knock. 

“Jackass.”

“Fuckwad.”

“Moody prick.”

“Control freak.”

_Jesus_. You steel yourself and rap your knuckles on the frame of the screen. There’s a pause in the string of muffled curses as two voices holler, “One sec!” 

Having a brother must be an experience, you think. 

When Dave answers the door, you almost gasp, all dramatic like one of those ladies in westerns with their hands to their chest. His shades are off again, sleepless purple smudges under his eyes that you want to brush away, somehow, but otherwise unhurt. “What,” he snaps, and then the frown on his face melts into something more apologetic as he takes you in. “John. I, fuck, I didn’t think—”

“It’s okay,” you assure him, holding up the bag. Dave looks at it for a moment before sighing, stepping back and ushering you in. “I mean—it doesn’t sound okay, but that’s not my business, but I…”

You stop. Try again. “I’m glad to see you, Dave.”

Dave runs his fingers through his hair and lets out a breath. “…me too,” he says finally. “Sorry about, uh.” He drops one hand to make some kind of vague gesture back towards the hallway. 

You give what you hope is a reassuring shrug. “It happens, man. I’m sure he already feels bad about it.”

“Yeah.” Dave frowns at nothing in particular. “Yeah,” he repeats, a little quieter, and your heart literally _hurts_ , watching the look on his face trying to find an expression to settle on. He looks naked without the shades, like he’s not sure what to do with himself. 

“Hey,” you prod, fiddling with the ties of the delivery bag, “did I say something—”

“No, no, it’s—” Dave brings his hands down over his face, rubs his eyes. “Maybe he was onto something.” 

He isn’t looking at you; it’s like he’s having a conversation with himself. You’re pretty good at those, on an internal front anyway. “Dave? Do you want to talk about it?”

“I’m shit at talking about it,” he says quickly, shifting again to plant his hands on his hips, restless. His accent forces its way forward under stress, tugging on his nervous vowels. _Shiiit_. Beneath the tattoos, his muscles are tense. “I mean, shit at talking in general. You don’t need in on my crap, John.”

It’s your turn to frown. “Isn’t that my choice to make?”

“Not if it concerns you.”

“…me?”

For someone standing in his own house, Dave suddenly looks incredibly lost. “No. Well, yeah—okay, fuck, no, I’m not doing this. Dirk’s gonna be wrong on this one, sorry, streak’s broken—”

“Dave, do I make you sad?” 

He jolts, like you’ve electrocuted him. “ _What?_ ” 

“If you were arguing about me, or if I kept you from work or whatever, I’m sorry, I didn’t want to cause trouble between the two of you.”

“Crucified _Christ_ , John, that’s not what—”

“Then what?” Dave’s nerves are getting to you, an embarrassing sort of osmosis like you’re some kind of feelings plant, or one of the flowers on his arm. The bag crinkles in your grip. 

Dave’s expression shifts from lost to desperate. You feel yourself filling his space in lost territory pretty well. “I can’t tell you,” he says finally. “Dirk’s wrong, I can’t tell you, I’m sorry.” 

“Tell me what?” Your voice is almost a squeak. “We’re friends, aren’t we? I know we haven’t known each other that long, but—”

“I _can’t_ , John.” Dave looms over you, backing you unconsciously against the wall, uncertain of how to stand, how to move, how to talk to you. It’s awful. It’s not supposed to happen. “Please. Just—”

“Is it bad? Because if you’re worried you’re gonna hurt my feelings or something you’re not—”

“ _Drop it,_ John!”

“No!”

Dave kisses you. 

Your grip on the delivery bag goes slack, and it falls to the floor with a crackling little _thump_ , forgotten. The world sort of narrows, slips into soft focus like you’ve taken off your glasses; all you’re conscious of is how _close_ Dave is, how his hands hover just over your arms, like he’s afraid to touch you, which is a little hilarious because he’s kissing you, he’s _kissing you._ His mouth is fever-hot on yours. 

_It’s not supposed to happen._

Slowly, you bring your hands up to his face, brushing your thumbs over his cheeks. Your lips part a little under his: Dave makes a pained sort of sound, and it’s all over too soon when he pulls back, his fingers still ghosting over your skin, both your hands suspended in midair. You look up at him, confused. His eyes are fixed on the ground, down and to the left. 

_It’s not supposed to_ —

“Dave?” 

“You should go,” he says. His voice is hoarse. Tired.

You sound about the same when you answer, “Okay.” They're two of the more painful syllables you've uttered, but you have no fight in you, not like this.

Dave stoops to pick up the bag. “Thanks for the delivery.”

“Yeah.”

The door opens and shuts: you barely register leaving the house, but then you’re alone with your bike, and a lump in your throat. 

Thursdays are definitely _not_ your fucking day.

*

You get to Rose’s place early, on account of you have stopped giving a shit, and when it comes to Rose you’ve been encouraged to just show up whenever pleases you. And by whenever, you mean _right now_ because if you have any more time to ponder the last twenty minutes of your life you might cry, or have an aneurysm, or both. 

Not to your surprise, Karkat is locking his bike to the railing when you arrive. He looks up, copper-coloured bangs poking out from beneath his beanie into his eyes. “Egbert, happy hell weather, my apartment feels like someone hotboxed Satan’s fiery asshole.”

“Nice to see you too, bro.” You half dismount before you brake, your right leg swung over Ghost Rider’s seat to coast onto the sidewalk beside him. “Did you bring the movie?” you ask, ignoring the way your heart sinks like a stone at the prospect of maybe not needing it, after all. You push the thought behind the smile you shoot at your friend, instead. 

Karkat balances his messenger bag on his leg, producing a clear case with angry all caps Sharpie markings on the DVD. “You’re welcome. Oh, yeah, I meant to ask yesterday, but how in the fresh fucking shit did you memorize that entire godawful title—John?”

His voice drops a couple decibels, concern filling the empty space, slow to reach your ears. You give yourself a shake. “Yeah?” 

“Are you okay, dude? You look like you got hit by the fuck-my-life bus.”

You nod, taking the case. “I’m fine. Long day.”

Karkat doesn’t look like he believes you, but all he says as you open the lobby door and head up the stairs is, “You should lock up your bike, you absolute moron.” 

“You’ve been telling me this for four years. Buy me a lock if you’re so worried.”

“Fuck, no.”

Rose answers the door, a pen behind one ear and a knitting needle behind the other. “Where’s the gift for the hostess?”

You shove Karkat forward a little. “I brought you a pain in the ass,” you announce.

“I already have one paying half the rent.”

“Too bad, I didn’t keep the receipt!” 

Karkat smacks you.

Rose and Eridan live on the third floor of a housing complex intended for grad students, a fact none of you have questioned since they moved in second year. As such, it’s the perfect place for hangouts: the open-concept kitchen gives way to the living room, which is occupied by a couch big enough for everyone, as well as some bungee-cord chairs Karkat brought from his old place last year. In lieu of a TV, a wall-sized projection screen takes up one side of the living room, showing some rerun of _Pawn Stars_.

As expected, the couch is already filling up. Eridan’s sitting on one end, in his usual getup of skinny jeans and a cardigan with no visible signs of heatstroke. His legs are on either side of Feferi, who’s perched cross-legged on the floor between them while he absently braids her hair. Rose’s girlfriend is beside him, a mug full of something fruity in her hands: she looks up when you finish pulling off your shoes. “John, Karkat. Did you both bike here?”

“Separately,” you reply, taking the spot she makes for you. Karkat launches himself at the couch between you and Eridan, who barely reacts beyond a half-hearted “Watch it” without looking away from the screen. His feet end up in your lap. You wrinkle your nose and make gagging noises until Karkat kicks you in the thigh and straightens. Kanaya looks like she’s already regretting her decision to act as the other bookend of the sofa. 

“Anyone else coming?” you ask. 

“That’s everyone,” Rose confirms, entering with a blanket to lay on the floor. “Jade picked up an extra shift at the restaurant, so no _Interstellar_ for her.”

Karkat groans. “We watched _Interstellar_ last time. It’s like three fucking hours…” 

“You want to pick, Vantas? Go get The Hat.”

“But I just sat down—”

“The Hat,” Rose repeats, mirroring Feferi’s pose at Kanaya’s feet. 

The Hat—capital H an imperative—is the title given to the world’s ugliest second-hand fedora, purchased by yours truly as a housewarming gift. The lot of you have filled it to its tacky brim with slips of colourful paper with movie titles on them. Karkat begrudgingly gets up (Eridan sticks one leg on the couch in his spot) and fetches The Hat: you all bang your fist on the nearest solid surface (Kanaya raises her mug over her head and stamps her foot instead), and he produces a bright green scrap with a flourish. “ _Tron: Legacy._ ”

A series of “Oh god”s and “Who the fuck put that in there”s quickly gets underway, and Rose holds up a hand for silence as she leans forward to grab her laptop. “You know the rules.”

“The Hat is endgame,” you all chorus obediently, like a bunch of kindergarteners. 

Rose smirks. “Peixes, the remote, if you please.”

“Aw, but we were aboat to find out if this was a genuine seventeenth-century blunderbuss!”

“Fef, we’ve seen this one before, it’s just a really good fake. Give Lalonde the remote ‘afore she blows a gasket.” 

Feferi tilts her head back to stick her tongue out at Eridan, who sticks his out back. She hands Rose the remote like the keys to a kingdom, full lips in a mock pout. 

Karkat sits back down beside you, directly on Eridan’s leg until the blond protests loud enough for Kanaya to shush him over the opening scene. “You’re quiet,” he comments, lifting his ass off the couch enough for the offending limb to be removed. 

“Everyone’s quiet compared to you,” you reply in a whisper. 

He rolls his eyes. “I’m serious. Someone insult your garbage taste in celebrity crushes at work or something?”

“First of all, Ryan Gosling is a sensitive man with puppy dog eyes and abs you could do laundry on. Get your eyes checked. Second—”

Kanaya shushes you, too, with a warning wave of her mug. You lean closer to Karkat. “I mean it. I’ll be okay, really. Just…I’m just thinking. About stuff.”

“You’re a shitty fucking liar, Egbert.”

You give your friend an “I know” look. He pats your knee: Karkat’s always warm, especially on a hot day like today, and it suddenly makes your chest constrict. The day’s events play on loop behind your eyes, the campy video game-esque soundtrack a backdrop to your struggle to figure out where the fuck you went _wrong_. Gamzee’s words play back at you, strawberry-scented and heavy in your heart. 

Something weighs on Dave Strider, and as stupid as it is, you can’t shake that funny feeling that you’re responsible. At least in part. 

(He pulled away so fast. You’re tempted to sit on your hands so you don’t touch your lips.)

“Can you turn it up a little?” you ask, nudging Rose with your foot. Volume won’t do shit to drown out your problems, but you are very much up for pretending, right now.

Rose raises an eyebrow at you, but complies. Jeff Bridges gets a little louder and a little madder on the screen.

You try to focus on the movie, you really do. Memory has other plans—your mind keeps wandering, to wide red eyes, to deep, pained voices, to shaking hands. You are not about to interrupt this marathon, no matter how irredeemable the film might be. Instead, you let yourself lean against Karkat: he tips into Eridan’s lap like a domino, and after a minute of combing Feferi’s curls loose again the latter tugs off Karkat’s beanie with one hand to get him in on the hair action. 

It looks relaxing as fuck. It also kind of tears at you, a little. 

You’re a hopeless case. 

The action sequences in the movie are not nearly captivating enough, and so you offer to get upfor drinks when Karkat’s arm gets too warm against your cheek. In the kitchen, you open the fridge and crouch there for a minute with your head in the door. You need to get a fucking grip. You’ve been kissed before—girls, guys, but that’s hardly the problem. 

The problem is that _this_ kiss—this hard, desperate mess of a kiss—felt like a thousand volts straight through you, jumbling your circuits and crossing all of your wires. 

All of them. 

And Dave had looked so… broken up about it. 

You sigh at the containers of leftovers in the fridge, and pull out craft cider bottles and iced teas. You grab a cherry Pepsi for yourself: your arms are full, and you have to ease the door shut with your toes. Hell yeah. You can make this all in one trip. 

You’re doing great until you get back to the living room, when you hold up the first bottle and ask, “How do you know when you love someone?”

Oh, _fuck_. 

It’s dark, and you don’t say it very loud over the roar of the cyber motorcycle things, but it’s too late. You scramble. “I mean, uh. Who ordered the—the, um, Strongbow?” 

Eridan’s hand slows in Feferi’s hair. Kanaya takes a long drink from her mug (she finished her tea a half hour ago). Karkat jerks up and almost clocks his human pillow in the jaw with his head. Rose just gives a little sigh and says, “Oh, John.”

Yeah, no, not your day. “Someone please take this fucking cider,” you mumble, and the rest of the drinks are quickly relieved from your hands. No one says a word, good or bad: not for the first time, you are incredibly grateful for your friends. 

You sag on the couch again. Karkat stares at you. 

“Dude—”

“No.”

“Dude,” Karkat repeats, “ _love?_ ” 

This is stupid. 

You’re about to cry, and your poker face is bad enough that Karkat just mutters, “Hey, none of that,” and extends an arm. You give in and kind of bury your face in his skinny-ass shoulder—he’s wearing a sweater, seriously, how is he not delirious from the heat—and feel bad for yourself in proper silence for a little while. 

When you lift your head, it’s still muggy out, but the Sun’s gone down, adding an extra cloak of darkness to the least lively party you’ve attended in a while (a joke, you don’t really attend parties unless board games are involved). You must have fallen asleep: the movie is over, and _Interstellar_ is on again. To the victor, bluh bluh. Karkat’s dead to the world beside you, his head in Eridan’s lap. Feferi’s completely curled up on the carpet, tangled up in the blanket Rose brought out. As for Rose, she’s migrated to the couch, sitting on the armrest; Kanaya’s using her as a pillow. 

You push yourself up into a sitting position. “Sorry about earlier.”

She shakes her head as gently as she can. “People slip up when they’re overwhelmed, John.”

“I’m not—I mean, yeah, I usually am, but I don’t see why this should be different.”

“If it’s love, it’s going to be different,” Rose says, all care and assurance, things you’re lacking in at the moment. The John Egbert self-esteem economy is reenacting the 1930s with eerie accuracy. 

“And if it’s not?” you ask. “If I’m just overreacting?” 

“I’ve seen overreacting, kid. You just have a lot to think about and nowhere for it to go.”

You sigh. Hans Zimmer’s masterful score makes it the most dramatic sigh of your life. This Thursday is turning out to be some serious Oscar material. Call the Academy. “Yeah. Hey, could I maybe—”

“You can stay the night. I’ll get more blankets after this part.” 

“You’re the best, Rose.”

“I’m pretty good, so I’ve heard.” Her smile is brief, but genuine. “Oh, and don’t text him. I’ve never met him, but it’s a good bet he’s not much better off than you. You both need sleep.” 

“But we—I need to know…I need to know,” you finish lamely, gesturing to nothing in particular. 

“ _Sleep_ , John.” 

You don’t argue much more than that. Besides, movies set in space make you a little dizzy. 

The window is open, and you’re warm as you drift off, but your blood and your head and your heart feel a little colder than you’d like. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave looks at you, and even though you can’t see his eyes you have a pretty good idea of his expression: it’s a surprised one, like he’s always a little in disbelief that you keep coming back to see him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this got long but i wanted a chapter up for the LEGIT DAY HAPPY BIRTH MARBLES!! pop those fuckin bottles 
> 
> i am v invested in this au tbh. im planning on writing a dirkjake thing to accompany this but if anyone has other things theyd maybe like to see feel free to drop a comment! but as always, thank you for reading, in this chapter things continue to happen at Questionable Writing Pace. peace

This is your Friday. You kind of wish it weren’t. 

Something smells good when you wake up on Rose’s couch with another knitted blanket draped over you, one of those chunky fuzzy ones she made Kanaya last summer for her birthday. You roll onto your stomach and squint over the side of the armrest. Eridan and Rose are in the kitchen, the former at the table touching up the dye in his hair and the latter at the stove, arguing as quietly as possible. 

“—nothin’ to do with us. Let him get over whatever it is like a big boy—whoa, _whoa_ , what do you think you’re doin’ to the pancake mix?” 

“I’m adding pizzazz. And I don’t _meddle_ , Ampora, I just sort of stand there and people bring their problems to me. Don’t act like you're an exception, I still think you would have made an excellent drama major first year.”

“Yeah, okay, I’m gonna go ahead and ignore that spear through my tender feelins on the grounds a’ this _pizzazz_ looks fuckin’ gross, keep that outta my breakfast.” 

Rose flicks one of the hands making airquotes behind her. “Don’t like it, don’t eat it. Although I’m a little amazed you still have a sense of taste with those chemical fumes permeating your brain.”

“It’s _unscented dye_ , Lalonde—”

Someone crouches in your periphery beside the sofa. “Good morning, John.” 

“Hey, Kanaya.” You jerk your chin to the kitchen. “What does she put in the pancakes?” 

“Orange juice. Family recipe, apparently.” Kanaya makes a skeptical face. Her hair is curled neatly around her ears and she’s dressed for her internship at some clothing line or other: how anyone can look so put-together so early in the morning is beyond you. Her and Rose are truly made for each other that way.

You extract one arm from the blanket to fumble for your glasses on the floor next to you and guess, “Already eaten yours, huh?” 

“That’s correct. I can try to salvage some citrus-free batter for you too, if you’d like. Did you sleep well?” 

“Well as I could ask for.” Truth be told, you’d passed out pretty quick, with Karkat’s internal radiator against you (he’s gone already, the early Vantas gets the worm or whatever else he uses as sustenance for his eight a.m. criminology lecture) burning away at the gnawing concerns of the day in your gut. This morning, though, they’re threatening to make a comeback. You don’t even want to look at your phone, shut off and half-shoved under the couch. 

Kanaya holds up your glasses. “It’s a start, isn’t it? Have some breakfast. The entertainment is complimentary.”

“It’s better than some of my assigned viewings, honestly.” You take your specs, crack a victorious little smile when Kanaya has to pretend you’re not hilarious first thing in the morning.

She gets to her feet and puts on her best serious face—and when it comes to serious faces, Kanaya Maryam is pretty up there. “Would either of you care to explain how you have the capacity to argue before your houseguest has even finished waking up? Look at this poor defenceless child.” She kicks the couch a little, and you try to look as haggard as possible as you sit up. It’s not very difficult. 

Rose and Eridan give her matching beseeching looks as she circles her way around the kitchen like a predator. 

“He started—”

“C’mon, Kan—”

“You,” Kanaya says to Rose in a mock-scold, “I’m sure John would love some pancakes. And you”—she snatches the brush from Eridan’s hands and pokes him in the side of the head with the tip—“think before you say things.”

“I didn’t say shit!” 

“Keep the advice for later when you do, then.” Kanaya leans in to kiss Rose’s cheek before rolling up her sleeves to finish Eridan’s hair. “Gloves.” 

He relaxes further into the chair as he hands a pair over. Dave’s working hands jump to the forefront of your train of thought again, and you busy yourself with the fruitless task of fixing your bedhead. 

Rose brandishes her spatula like a weapon. “One pancake or two, John?” 

“Yeah,” you yawn, then frown and shake your head. “Wait, can you repeat the question?”

“Two it is.” 

It turns out orange juice in pancake mix doesn't completely suck, or maybe it’s the amount of syrup you put on them that makes it taste okay. Saviour of the baking world, that’s you. Rose doesn’t seem to care either way; Eridan stares at your plate like your pancakes grew legs. Kanaya keeps working at the dye, muttering at him to keep still. While you eat, you let your phone reboot: it takes its sweet time, which does very little for the hurdles your heart’s got prepared. 

“Where’s Feferi?” you ask between bites. “Hey, these are great, Rose!”

“Flattery won’t get you far, but nice try,” she replies airily, but you catch the quick smile she gives the batter. “She had swim practice. She left her request for next marathon, though.”

Kanaya breaks her concentration to chime in, “I am absolutely not watching a third _Sharknado_ movie.”

You wave your speared pancake in the air noncommittally. “It’s really not that bad. I mean, some of the plot is a little lackluster, but—”

Your phone buzzes to life. And then buzzes again. 

The pancake slips off your fork into its syrupy puddle in your plate as you reach for your phone like it’s your death certificate. It takes you four tries to remember your password, two tries to cradle it against your ear to listen to your least favourite song ever, the robotic lady voice announcing that _you have. One. New message._

“John, hey, it’s me.” 

Christ. He sounds awful. 

“I know it’s like—uh, fuck, it’s like three in the morning, when did that happen—God, it’s so late, or early, and I fuckin’ hate leaving messages, but I…Jesus, John, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I messed up, I shouldn’t have—you didn’t—holy shit, there should really be a reset button on voicemails, what the fuck…”

It goes on for half a minute: Dave’s voice is a little garbled through the speaker, cracked and heavy with sleep he’s not getting. You stare at your pancakes. Around you, an argument over how women can’t give birth in a shark’s stomach while hurtling through the lower atmosphere has broken out.

“—I get it if you don’t wanna, but, uh, I’m technically off the clock tomorrow, or today, whatfuckingever, and I wanna say—I want—I mean, I don’t really deserve a movie day, but that title was pretty convincing, you know?”

He forces a laugh into the receiver. _Breathe, John._

“But hey. Ball’s in your court. Gimme a call back, or something, if you want. I’ll be here. I—yeah, okay. I’m sorry. Goodnight. Morning. Okay. Man, how much storage do you have in your voicemail, did this gold star trainwreck even record p—”

Your phone beeps loudly to signal the end of the message, and you pull it away with a groan, staring at the ticking call timer on the screen.

Rose looks up from the saucepan. “Is everything alright?”

Question of the goddamn century. “Maybe?” you end the call and let your phone drop to the table with a muted thump. The current time flashes at you, over your Matthew McConaughey collage lockscreen (the product of many hours of procrastination, you haven’t changed it in half a year): it’s a little past nine. Hours of potential.

She looks like she wants to say more, but instead just flips a pancake and turns to pour herself a second cup of coffee. 

You push your plate away a little guiltily. “I think I’ll head out. Thanks for letting me crash, guys.” 

A twin chorus of “Anytime” and “No sweat” echoes in response as you gather your shit. You’re already compiling a grocery list of things to do: if you work quickly enough, you can almost avoid the nagging part of your brain that’s already starting to think it’ll be a bad idea. 

“Call if you need anything, John,” Rose calls, her head poking out from behind Kanaya’s shoulder. 

“Got it.” You bend to pull on your shoes, feeling a little nauseous and a lot awake. You give an upside-down wave to your kitchenbound friends and practice looking like you slept more than five hours. 

“Hey, did you want your other pancake or…?”

“Now would be the time to cash in that thinking advice, Eridan.” 

“Fuck you, I can guarantee I’ll say stupider shit by noontime.” 

At the very least, you can take solace in the fact that everything at Rose’s house is in balance with the will of the universe. Maybe it’ll rub off on you. 

With one hand on the doorknob, you call over your shoulder, “Can someone add _Spy Kids 2_ to The Hat for me?” 

“No.” “No.” “Isn’t that already in th— _ow_ , I mean no.”

“Thanks! Bye!” 

*

Back at your place, you take a shower—a fancy name for standing under running water for thirty minutes and rehearsing all the possible things you might have to say to a boy you consider your friend, whose lips tasted very faintly of apple cider and whose secrets lodged in his throat and under your skin.

You get shampoo in your eyes. 

Styling your hair doesn’t do much, so you let it dry on its own and make do. The temperature’s gone back to normal, more or less, but yesterday’s humidity leaves a chill hanging in the air like invisible fog. You grab a hoodie, stick Karkat’s DVD in your bag. After that you open your door, look at your bike, then immediately close the door and watch the first half of an assigned film you don’t really pay attention to. The camera work is hard to follow without your full concentration: what you’d hoped would calm your nerves is mostly making them worse. 

When you can’t justify stalling any longer, you leave your house for good. Autumn’s back with a vengeance—it’s windy out, leaves crunching underfoot as you pull your hood over your head to fend off the cold. A far cry from the day prior, but then again, the day prior hadn’t exactly been typical for you, had it? 

You kick off with purpose. The breeze propels you to your destination, a whistling so loud that you can barely hear the music from your phone. Oh shit—your phone. Maybe you should call Dave, tell him you’re on your way. You may or may not have listened to the voicemail a second time while you were busy wrestling with socks and your own subconscious as to when to leave. 

You pedal another two blocks, and then veer onto the sidewalk to input the number he showed you on the business card. Someone picks up on the third ring after you’ve started up again, a bit slower and steering with your free hand. 

“Sweet Bro tattoos and piercings, superior Strider on the line.”

“Dave?” You have to talk a little louder to make yourself heard. “I got your message. I know it’s a teeny bit last minute, but I’m kind of turning onto your street and—”

“Wait, what?” 

“I am literally five seconds from your place with a cinematic masterpiece in my backpack with your name on it. Are you home?”

Dave is, indeed, home. Actually, he’s on his doorstep when you pull up, one hand on the doorknob and his phone still raised to his ear, a sun-bleached statue decked in aviators and a varsity swim shirt that hangs a little lopsided on his shoulders. 

“I keep telling you, Egbert,” he says into the receiver. “I’m always here.”

Oh, this is some _serious_ cliché-movie-reunion-type shit. Someone cue the LeAnn Rimes. 

You practically launch yourself off Ghost Rider, and it falls harmlessly into the grass. Dave doesn’t have much time to process what you’re doing before you throw yourself at him and wrap your arms around his middle. 

“Um.” 

He’s a fucking furnace, a wiry wall of heat beneath the shirt you’re assuming doesn't belong to him. You can feel the cadence of his heart against your cheek: it quickens a bit, the longer you stay like this. 

“Are you okay?” you ask, the question muffled against the well-worn fabric. 

“Am _I_ okay?” Dave’s voice is a rumble in his chest that almost makes you laugh at the absurdity of this whole thing. You feel him shift to pocket his phone, the stretch of muscle and tattooed skin.

You pull away a little to look up at him. “You sounded upset on the phone. I wasn’t sure if you wanted to—”

“ _Me?_ Dude.” Dave’s hands fall on your shoulders, pushing you gently away to arm’s length. “I was out of line. I shouldn’t—I shouldn’t have done. That.” 

“That,” you echo, wishing for a script, a prompt, a nudge in the right direction. What are you supposed to say? For all the mid-shower debating you’d done, you really hadn’t thought this through very well. 

From the looks of it, neither has Dave. “I’m sorry, okay?” he’s saying, releasing you to run his fingers through his hair in what you’re starting to recognize as a nervous tic. “I honestly didn’t think you’d wanna see me after that biblical clusterfuck.” 

“Why not? We’re friends, aren’t we?” 

Dave looks at you, and even though you can’t see his eyes you have a pretty good idea of his expression: it’s a surprised one, like he’s always a little in disbelief that you keep coming back to see him. “Well, sure. Yeah. But, I dunno, I was expecting a cold shoulder, or a shouting match, or a punch, or some—”

You drop low and punch him in the stomach to comply. 

Dave doubles over in the doorway, a wheezing “Hhhh _oly_ shit” escaping his lips as he leans against the frame. You immediately feel bad. 

“Sorry, oh my god, I’m sorry, I hit harder than I thought I—”

Laughter. He’s _laughing_. It’s a little strained, but it’s there, and when Dave straightens it strengthens in volume, full of relief. “That’s more like it. Hey, come in, it’s fuckin’ cold out here.” 

It’s a start. 

*

The studio doors are open again, and you can hear Nicki Minaj verses reverberate through the rest of the house. Dave offers to take your bag and sets off down the hallway to find the DVD player. You’re about to follow him when you catch sight of the client currently lounging on her stomach at Dirk’s workstation, one leg of her cargo pants rolled up past her knee, propped up on her forearms and chatting away like she isn’t getting ink stamped into her calf. 

“—so then I was all, ‘pretty shore it ain’t illegal in _international_ waters,’ but she was convinced—”

She cuts herself off when she looks up, eyes widening in wicked delight behind her pink glasses. “John fuckin’ Egbert! Long time no see, squirt!” 

“Meenah fucking Peixes,” you manage to reply, frozen in the doorway.

“Dirk fucking Strider,” says Dirk from her other side. He’s got a headlamp over his bangs (there are hearts and smiley faces on the elastic), and his hair is pulled back into a strong contender for the world’s smallest pigtail. “I take it you know each other?” 

You beat her to the punch, shuffling in closer. “First year RA from the Black Lagoon.” 

“Aw, don’t be that way, I was GREAT!” Meenah grins at you, sharp and more than a little mischievous. It’s a mystery how someone related to Feferi and her activism accolades can be so…well, her. “And it wasn’t _reely_ a dictatorship, quit exaggeratin’.” 

“You said it, not me.” Yeah, there’s more than one reason you readily took up Jane’s offer to move in together after that. 

Dirk taps Meenah’s calf with two fingers (you didn’t know latex gloves even got _manufactured_ in that shade of orange) before twisting it towards him to keep lining on the inside of her leg, over the violet stencil. “I’m hardly surprised to find out you’re this radiant to everyone you meet.” 

“You loooove me, Strider First,” Meenah singsongs. Her shirt’s got the sleeves ripped off halfway to her navel; you can see a hot pink sports bra, a strip of bare skin. She’s co-captains of your school’s rowing team with her girlfriend. Scary bitches. Scary bitches that could probably beat you up. You send a silent plea to Dave to find the DVD player faster. 

Dirk seems unfazed. “I feel pretty neutrally about you, Peixes. Stop dancing on my table.” 

“You ain’t seen me dance yet. Right, squirt?” 

Ignoring Meenah’s bait, you crane your neck on tippy toes to look at the freakishly straight lines of what you think is a tarot card.

She confirms your guess with another pointy grin. “The Hanged Man. Got the Empress on the other leg last year, wanna see?”

“—the dancing, what did I _just_ say—”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t get your britches in a bunch, pretty prince.” Meenah waves away Dirk’s frown, her focus on you. “I’ll be all matchy in two more sessions. Got any ink on ya, Egbert? Or are you straight-edge?” 

“I’m not any kind of edge. Uh, I don’t think, anyway.” 

Meenah shrugs as best she can with Dirk’s hands pinning the lower half of her body. “Think aboat it, kiddo. Let the Striders work their magic on that scrawny little bod.” 

You cross your arms over your hoodie. 

Salvation comes in the form of a shout from upstairs. “John?” 

Oh, thank god. “Coming!” You raise a hand in a semi-apologetic goodbye. “I gotta jet.” 

Meenah waggles her eyebrows. “Be seein’ you. Oh, yo, turn it up, this is the _best_ verse.” 

Dirk sighs and leans back to nudge the volume knob with his elbow. You do it for him, on account of you don't have a tattoo instrument in one hand. He meets your gaze briefly: his eyes remind you of amber, the kind in museums and Discovery Channel documentaries, that traps things and fossilizes them. There must be something in the water in Texas. “Enjoy your movie, John,” he says, soft and sincere, heavy with something he doesn’t need to add. 

You decide you like Dirk a whole lot.

*

Dave’s room is beyond the fabled door at the top of the stairs, across from what you assume to be his brother’s. “Chez Strider,” he says in greeting, not looking up from plugging the DVD player into the back of the old television. “Make yourself comfy.”

You obediently settle on the bed in the corner, tugging a pillow into your lap to play with while you look around. Dave’s walls are plastered in colourful poster, of bands you don’t recognize, ofconstellations, of shitty doodles and masterpieces on the same pieces of paper. There’s even a beaten-up looking one of the differences between kinds of swords, the type you’d find at fifth-grade book fairs. A fan sits turned off under the window, near a desk littered in sketch supplies, a laptop tucked away at the back. It feels…lived-in. Cozy. 

The player makes a slightly alarming _whirrrr_ as it boots up. Dave raises a fist in the universal sign for _fuck yeah, victory._ “We have liftoff.”

“Awesome!” You root in your bag at the foot of the bed for the movie. “You’re gonna love it, dude. I won’t spoil, but the work with the biscuit rig, it’s so real-looking you feel like you’re shredding down an LA road with—what is it?” 

You cut off your own hype train, derail it right off the tracks when you notice Dave looking at you.It’s just as dim in his room as the rest of the studio: it casts shadows on his face, carves hollows into his cheeks, his jaw. You see the muscles working again, Dave tasting his words before releasing them into the space between the two of you. “I can’t quite figure you out.”

“You can’t?” You give a baffled little smile. “I’m not particularly shrouded in mystery, here.”

Dave’s kind of half-hugging himself, one hand cradling his elbow and the other on his waist. “I guess not,” he acquiesces. “I’m just—doing the thing. The me thing.”

“What’s the Dave thing?” 

“Unimportant, is what.” He gives a little shrug, and sits heavily on the bed next to you with the remote, pushing his glasses up into his hair like the last time you hung out. “Okay. This movie better dazzle the shit out of me, John.” 

Hell yes. You are _doing_ it. You’re making this happen.

You reach over to pluck the remote from between his fingers. “In that case, prepare to be dazzled, Dave Strider,” you announce, with a dramatic wave of your fingers for emphasis. 

Once you’ve popped Karkat’s DVD in the movie starts, and you wriggle in place like a kid on Christmas morning, mouthing the opening lines along with the Driver’s crooning Canadian tenor. 

_There’s a hundred thousand streets in this city. You don’t need to know the route._

(You’re too engrossed in the scene to notice Dave watching you again.)

Like last time, you feel Dave slowly drop his guard, relaxing beside you to the admittedly fantastic “straight banger of a soundtrack, this movie might be alright, Egbert.” When you steal quick glances from the movie—you can recite it by heart, probably, you’ve seen it at least thirty times, thirteen of those alone in theatres way back when it came out—his eyes are fixed on the screen, a kinda scrunched expression on his face. 

Once you’ve passed one of your favourite scenes (hammers are _dangerous_ , goddamn), you reach for the pause button. Confirming your suspicions, Dave gives himself a shake, straightening on the bed a little. “Why’d you stop?” 

“What’s on your mind?” 

He raises a shock-white eyebrow. “You mean, aside from Ryan Gosling’s off-the-charts levels of repressed manpain?” 

You sock him in the arm. “Ha-ha. Really. There’s something you’re not telling me.”

“I told you, John. I’m shit at talking.” Dave sounds the slightest bit remorseful, still watching the TV and its frozen frame. 

Oh, no. You are not doing this again, this whole talking in circles thing. This movie deserves both of your undivided attention, and until Dave comes clean about whatever’s keeping him up at night neither of you will be able to appreciate this true work of goddamn _art_. 

So you tuck your legs in and spin your ass ninety degrees on the mattress to face him, putting on your most excellent no-nonsense face. A Maryam you are not, though, so it probably looks more like a five-year-old telling off a slightly taller five-year-old, or something to that effect. “Dave.”

“John,” he shoots back smoothly. 

Without thinking, you rest your fingers on his knee, drumming them on the fabric of his jeans. He blinks in surprise. Aha. Façade broken. 

“I’m not playing the movie until you can _enjoy_ it.” You give a little jab with your index for emphasis. 

Dave deflates a little, all limbs and ink and jumbled thoughts beneath his lashes. “You’re so strange.” 

“I’m your friend,” you correct him. Your fingers walk absently along his thigh, to the hem of his shirt. In the position he’s in on the bed, it hangs almost completely off his shoulder: you can see an ornate clock hand and gear teeth over the muscles, in the dip of his collarbone. You want to touch them.

Instead, you change the subject, in the hopes of getting _somewhere_. “The shirt is Dirk’s.” 

Now he just looks confused. “…yeah.” 

“He a swimmer?” 

“Uh-huh.” Dave cracks a wry smile down at your hands. “Placed in state championships four years running back in high school. Got him a scholarship.” 

“That’s great!” 

“It was.” Dave’s eyes don’t match his smile. “But he—he dropped out. After second year.”

You weren't expecting that. “Dropped out? Why?” 

Another shift: his arms retreat a little again. You can’t have said something wrong already! 

“It was because of me.” 

*

Well. You…you don’t know how to respond to that. “What? No, that can’t be right—”

“It is.” Dave shrugs, his gaze averted in a way you’re so _tired_ of. “I mean, he’s never outright said it, but it was obvious from the start.”

He keeps his arms around himself, and when he opens his mouth next, you don’t feel very victorious at all.

“Home…home wasn’t very good. Dirk did most of the raising. Taught me how to swim, taught me self-defence, taught me how to draw. Worked his ass off whenever he wasn’t in school. When I was twelve, he interned at a studio in Houston. Started making good money.” The smile he gives the TV is far away. “He talked about leaving town. About moving, starting over. Making a new place for ourselves.

“When he got the scholarship, he tried to do it all—classes, swimming, working—he even helped me get my first job.”

You can’t help but interject, transfixed. “Tattooing?” 

“Naw. Part-time DJ. Sickest beats stateside, bro, downright terminal shit.” Dave blows strands of his bangs from his eyes. “When neither of us were working, though, he’d bring me to the studio and I could sit and draw. Mostly shitty cartoons to cheer him up. He—Dirk didn’t have a lot of free time. Always had like three things goin’ on at once, you know?” 

You know. 

“—so when one had to go, he picked school. Worked full time. Paid for all my shit. We had our own apartment, by then, just him and me. When I finished high school, he got me an internship at the studio, and when he had enough cash, we boosted the fuck outta Texas. And the rest, Egbert, is what the kids call history.” 

(Holy shit.) “Holy shit.” 

Dave gestures towards the door, towards the studio downstairs. “Dirk put all this together. He’s put everything together, and I—”

“You feel like you haven’t done enough,” you finish, a quiet realization one octave higher than Dave’s oddly detached narrative. 

He doesn’t nod, just sort of jerks his head down the slightest bit; it could be concession, or it could just be an attempt at hiding. You’ve got him cornered again. “I got my license as fast as I could, to start paying him back. He wouldn’t let me.”

“Dave—”

“I owe him,” he interrupts, emotion creeping into his voice, seeping like water that time you and Jane’s basement flooded, slow enough you didn’t know what was happening until you were ankle-deep. “I keep myself here, I wanna work, or help, or _something_ , I dunno. I’ll never catch up to him, no matter what I do. It’s a shit fuckin’ feeling.” 

You’re familiar with your own share of shit fuckin’ feelings. “Have you talked to him about—”

“John, I am many things, all of them infinitely too cool to be a talker of emotions. The only things keeping me from spontaneously combusting on my bed from even having this conversation right now are my thinly veiled interest in the plot of this movie and you.” 

“…me?” 

Dave raises his head a teeny bit. You catch his eyes darting to you, scarlet slits, lightning-fast. “You,” he confirms. “I…you kept coming back. From the very start.” 

“You kept ordering food,” you point out. 

“Egbert, I’m having a rare and elusive moment here.” 

“Of course.” You nod as somber as possible, but your smile betrays you. 

Dave doesn’t seem to mind. “You kept coming back,” he says, “and that’s something I’ve never really seen before. Nothing really constant like that in the Strider life.” 

“…you’re a tattoo artist. Like, with permanent ink. You know that, right?” 

“John, John, John, that is what they refer to as situational fuckin’ irony.” 

He’s joking around, and fuck if it isn’t a little wrenching to see, the way Dave skirts around his own troubles, like he doesn’t want to dump them on you, not even the condensed Sparknotes version of whatever past he’s had. 

You shake your head. “Well, of course I come back. I really—I love spending time with you. I wanna keep doing it.” 

There’s that surprised look again. It does something to you, to every inner working of John Egbert, all of which have seemed to forget how they ever functioned normally without six feet two inches of tatted Texan sitting very, very close. “Me, too,” Dave says. “But no more of this bullshit. That was my level 3 tragic backstory. You need to be at least level 6 to unlock the rest.” 

“Gosh, I’m not all that good at video games, how am I already level 3?”

“Give yourself a little credit, John.” Dave leans back on his hands, his head against the wall. “Seriously, though. Enough feelings jam tonight. I’m out of toast.” 

“Fine by me!” 

The angle exposes more ink. You seriously _cannot_ resist. 

When you run one cautious hand over the bare skin of his shoulder, along the lines of one of the gears, Dave’s breath hitches a little.

Oh. “Is this okay?” you ask.

He just nods, and when your fingers trail along his collarbone you look up in time to catch his eyes fluttering shut, letting out a slow sigh. “John…”

“You don’t have to talk if you’re shit at it,” you say, tracing one particular line back up and behind him, leaning forward a bit to follow. 

Dave hesitates, opening his eyes a crack to land on you, and you can almost _see_ the cogs turning in his head, red-orange-bronze to match the ones on his arm. “…then what should we do instead of talk?” 

The second time you kiss Dave Strider, he still tastes like apples, he still feels like someone’s lit a fire just beneath his skin. But the feel of his lips on yours is different, less sad, less desperate; what starts as uncertainty on his behalf quickly changes when he realizes that yeah, _yeah_ , you kind of really want this to be a thing that’s happening right now. Enough emotional bullshit for one afternoon. Ryan Gosling can handle the rest. 

He settles his hands on your waist, warm and strong and sure, and pulls you closer with all the care in the world. You twist again to straddle him, on your knees over his hips, and when you break apart briefly he’s staring at you like you’re a marvel. 

“John—”

“You’re still talking,” you half-whisper, half-whine, and his mouth is hungrier, this time—the kiss deeper, coaxing a soft little sound from somewhere you can’t entirely place. Your hands wander, linking loosely around his neck before snaking beneath the fabric of his shirt to trace the ink over his spine; he shivers, and you feel it like a bolt of fucking lightning. 

Dave’s hands wander, too. They stay at your hips, at first, his thumbs brushing your sides through your clothes before moving further back. It’s your turn to hitch a breath. 

“Holy fuck,” Dave murmurs, low against your lips. 

“Mm?” 

“You have a really nice ass.” 

Your laugh comes out breathy. “I ride bikes for a living, Dave,” you remind him, replacing your earlier fingers on his shoulder with your mouth. He makes a funny little noise at that, one that goes straight to your core, fills it with a pleasant sort of warmth. 

Yeah. This is way better than toast or jam or whatever the fuck he was talking about. This is more of that cliché movie shit you both deserve, for god’s sake! 

(Speaking of movies.)

“Dave.”

“John,” he replies, drawing back lazily. Christ, but he looks happier than you remember ever seeing him. 

“Not that this isn’t, uh, the highlight of basically my fucking week, but—”

“—but you want to see this sad Canadian man contemplate his shitty life choices behind the wheel of a car my ass couldn’t afford.”

“It is a _really good_ movie! We can’t stop now!” 

Dave brings his hands back around, rests them on your arms for a beat before shrugging. “I am all eyes and ears, Egbert. The night is still young.” 

You can’t help but agree.

“And hey. Thanks.”

“I didn’t do anything that needs thanking, Dave.”

He cracks a smile. It may reach a little higher on his face than the last. “Right.” 

By the time you hit play, Dave’s head is on your shoulder, white-blond hair in your periphery, warmth against you, in you, thawing the last of whatever you’d had in your chest when you’d pulled up to the studio earlier. 

You are not the strange one here, at least you’re pretty sure. Then again, maybe you might be. You think that’s probably okay. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> go watch drive (2011) 
> 
> the Hanged Man: wisdom, circumspection, discernment, trials, sacrifice, intuition, divination, prophecy. pisces affiliation (thierens)  
> the Empress: Fruitfulness, action, initiative, length of days; the unknown, clandestine; also difficulty, doubt, ignorance


End file.
